Month: August 2007

Ah, yes – I remember hearing this bit of obscure tech a year or more ago and it appears to be making some headway.Printing With Stem Cells

“Inkjets adopted for bioprinting essentially become celljets; each ink tank is replaced with one containing a single type of specialized cell, suspended in a solution that will gel under the appropriate conditions. Feed this printer an image where each color represents the location of the specialized cell types in an organ (blue for blood vessel components, red for muscle, etc.), and it will create what is essentially a thin slice through a healthy organ. Once the liquid in that slice gels, a second slice can be printed on top of it and the process can be repeated indefinitely, building a three-dimensional reconstruction of an organ.”

About damned time, I say. Looks like Xerox might be a good stock to invest in long-term. Heh…

What an image of sacrifice…surely his mother is saving all the papers and all the letters for a time when he can look back on that day with the pain more distant…

The original photo can be purchased. You can also read a bit about it here. There is a fund set up for the young man’s education should you feel so inclined. It is sometimes hard to think of these things in a piecemeal way – what good does it do to aid one boy? Well, as darling Squarf once wrote in his Codex:

“If you wish to do good, but don’t know how, find a good man and empower him to do good — not in your name, but in the name of doing good.”

Perhaps by doing these onesy-twosey support donations we are doing just that. I like to think so. I want to believe that the young man above will do great things. Bless him…his father must have been so proud…

It’s been insanely busy at work of late and I’ve hardly had time to think but I saw this little survey result and the comments therein just sent me over the edge. What you will see is a microcosm of the world today: a few people throwing pure logic at the matter, and a majority just declaring without a thought that your profits and the product of your labor is free for the claiming because it’s all so “unfair” or the “right” thing to do.

Let us recall those years before welfare, and before people had the benefit of the largesse of the public. People either found a way to pay for their care, found a charity willing to aid them, or they went without the care and lived their lives as best they could. I don’t think there is anything wrong with dealing with those options. But I feel like I am in a shrinking minority.

What baffles me further is that, regardless of the amassed evidence that the “European” style of health care is frought with failure, people still declare that it’s working and fantastic even if it does take 40% of your income.

The only thing that will fix the health care cost issue is to force insured people to make educated choices about care – do I really need this or am I just doing it because my coverage will allow it with a nominal cost to me? – and to force people to pay more for non-emergency coverage. Care providers know, clearly, that there are deep pockets in the insurance company world. Once those pockets dwindle to cover only major care needs, the prices will adjust naturally.

You have no right to the fruits of others’ labor. Not for any reason, ever. It comes down to that very basic point. And it matters not at all if that labor brought about copious fruit or not. Whether someone has a million or ten dollars – none of it, not a cent, is yours. Otherwise, it’s just like pinching a twenty out of someones wallet at the checkout lane with a “Sorry but I’ve got a gyno appointment in the morning and this is your fair share!” Nonsense.

But then…as the comments in the survey will illustrate…there’s a lot of that going around.

Addendum: Having re-read this I see that I use the word “force” in the next to last paragraph which is entirely NOT what I had in mind. I am not certain how to word it in a way to indicate that the free market should dictate pricing and that insurance companies are middle-men who complicate the process. I do hate when my point gets muddied…it made sense in my head. LOL

When I was very young my father returned to Chicago and we all followed him south to tiny New Smyrna Beach, Florida. I went from alley ways and snow to…an almost jungle-like environment. Those first years were scattered with many ups and downs but what I remember most was the music.

God, I loved that song. Even now, just the first few notes bring that briney scent back to mind. My apologies to those of you who are now in the throes of agony

My, oh, my…those Rooskies have definitely been busy lately. This just in: “President Vladimir Putin placed strategic bombers back on long-range patrol for the first time since the Soviet breakup, sending a tough message to the United States on Friday hours after a major Russian military exercise with China.”

Just last week? “‘US forces detected two Russian TU-95 Bear aircraft on August 8 as they were flying south toward Guam,” said Pentagon spokesman Chito Peppler. ‘US forces were prepared to intercept the bombers, but they never came close enough to a navy ship or to Guam to warrant an air-to-air intercept.'”

And with their ever-increasing unhappiness with our presence anywhere nearby (recall those bases in Poland I mentioned not long ago), “International military experts say a missile found in the country of Georgia last week was dropped from a plane that flew from and returned to Russian airspace. The missile plummeted to a field near Tsitelubani and broke apart but did not explode or hurt anyone, The New York Times reported Friday. Experts from the United States, Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania said the missile was a 16-foot-long, Russian-made Kh-58 — a rocket designed to destroy NATO radar stations.”

I should like very much for you to consider this…dangerous liason between Russia and China when you consider shopping at Walmart.

While I assume the tete-a-tete they have will remain cordial, I like to think of them going at each other rather than joining forces against us. Because – you understand – we’ve not enough bullets for the Chinese cannon fodder. I really do hate to be so blunt in my language but one must understand these things clearly and without sweet. To go to war with them is to go unconventional. We would have little other choice. And that scares me more than nearly anything.

Consider Katrina and the level of imbecilic behavior there when food, water and shelter was a day’s walk away – or less.

Imagine treble that many people with nothing within 4 days walk.

And in other related news – this linky was very interesting. I recall seeing it at some point or another as a child though I am not that old. I wish something akin to this was brought forth now. Because I think fully 65% of Americans haven’t a clue the delicate balance that is being…trembled just now.